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Tomato Cream Soup
One quart of tomatoes; one-half cup of rice; one quart of water; one pint of milk; one saltspoon of pepper; two teaspoons of salt; one tablespoon of butter; two tablespoons of flour; one saltspoon of soda. Place the rice, tomato, water, salt and pepper together in a granite pan, and cook until the rice is tender but not broken. Rub the butter and flour together and stir into the above mixture. When it thickens and has cooked for three or four minutes, add the soda dissolved in a little cold water, then the milk, which has been heated to the boiling point in a separate saucepan. Serve at once without more heating, as if boiled with the tomato there is always danger of the milk curdling.
A thickened tomato soup finished with hot milk, from the era before canned condensed soup made this the commonest of all American first courses. Two details carry it: the soda and the fact that the milk goes in last.
- The hinge: add the milk at the end, off the heatThe hinge: add the milk last and serve without further cooking -- tomato acid can curdle milk, and prolonged boiling makes it likely. The recipe has you heat the milk to the boiling point in a separate pan, stir it into the hot tomato base, and serve at once. Reheating the combined soup, or holding it on the stove, risks breaking it.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So a quarter teaspoon each of pepper and soda, against two teaspoons of salt -- taste before committing to the full salt if you are using canned tomatoes, which may already contain added salt.
- Why the sodaThe pinch of baking soda neutralises some of the tomato acid, which is insurance against curdling. Any more than the quarter teaspoon and the soup tastes flat and faintly soapy, and the tomato loses its brightness.
- A granite panGraniteware is enamelled sheet steel, a non-reactive surface, which is presumably why it is called for in an acid soup. Use stainless steel or enamelled cast iron; avoid bare aluminium or unlined copper, which can give tomato a metallic edge.
- A quart of tomatoesMost likely put-up tomatoes with their juice, as was common in this period: a 28-32 oz can works directly. From fresh, allow about 2 lb, peeled, seeded and chopped, with their juice made up to a quart with water.
- The riceHalf a cup of rice simmered in a quart of water with acid tomato may take longer than plain boiled rice; allow roughly 25-35 minutes and judge by the recipe's own test, tender but not broken.
- TextureAs written the rice stays whole and the soup is rustic. For the smooth version most modern palates expect, blend the base before the milk goes in and thin with a little extra milk.
- YieldAbout two and a half quarts — six generous servings as a first course.
Cream of tomato was among the most popular American soups at the turn of the century, and versions appear in many general household manuals of the 1890s and 1900s, including this one. Its spread is usually linked to two things: canned tomatoes, widely available from the 1880s, which made the dish a year-round proposition, and cheaper fresh milk from the growing urban dairy trade. Curdling was the standard difficulty attached to it, and a pinch of soda -- recommended in a number of cookbooks of the period, though also criticised for dulling the flavour -- was a common remedy. Rice is an older thickener, doing work that a flour roux alone does in later recipes; here the book uses both. Campbell's condensed tomato soup, introduced in 1897, would in time displace the homemade version in many kitchens.